When the former BBC director, Greg Dyke, referred to his BBC as "hideously white" nearly six years ago, he might just as easily have been referring to any one of many large media organisations that lag far behind the national average in terms of the ethnic mix of their employees.

Dyke has since remarked upon the increasing diversity of the corporation's workforce, but though awareness is growing of an ethnic imbalance in the nation's newsrooms and commissioning departments, the output of the British media is seldom identified as a force for ethnic integration. Ask Saad Saraf, chairman of ethnic advertising specialist Media Reach, how best to reach ethnic audiences of any kind, and his list starts with mobile, email and online and goes on to include outdoor, specialist ethnic titles and dedicated TV channels. The mainstream media hardly come into it.

"None of the mainstream newspapers know how many people read their titles from different ethnic backgrounds, be they Polish or Asian or Caribbean," he says. Even if they did know, he believes, they would be unlikely to uncover a huge trove of loyal readers from the broader ethnic population.

"If you want me to read your title, you have got to be relevant to me," he says. Saraf, a 20-year veteran of this niche industry, concedes that the media's reflection of society has evolved hugely during the past two decades, but says more must be done to increase the pace of change.

"I would like them to open their eyes, to understand the composition of the population," he says.

According to figures from the Commission for Racial Equality, ethnic minorities now represent 8% of the UK's population, and black and Asian consumers alone earn more than £156bn after tax. But the fact that 61% of Pakistanis, 57% of Indians and 54% of Bangladeshis feel that non-ethnic TV channels should have more programmes for ethnic minorities, according to Starfish Research, points to, at best, a missed opportunity and at worst to something of a malaise.

In and around London, where the need for minority representation is arguably most pressing, a handful of local newspapers extend to ethnic news sections. One of them, which serves Brick Lane and Tower Hamlets, publishes four pages of news in Bengali, but this is an isolated example. "There is nothing consistent, nothing geared to the diverse communities of London," says Saraf.

Where TV is concerned, many identify a similar problem. Opinion divides on what constitutes good content for our increasingly ethnic society, though we can all probably identify the bad. Formerly well-loved 70s shows such as Mind Your Language and It Ain't Half Hot Mum have emerged as key examples of the kind of thing we just don't do these days.

Sanjay Shabi, director of CultureCom, the ethnic division of media agency MediaCom, remembers Nai Jeevan Naya Zindagi, a south Indian magazine programme, as being destination viewing on the terrestrial television of the 70s, followed some years later by Network East.

However, dedicated ethnic programming is not much more common on mainstream television these days than cheerfully racist sitcoms. Increasingly common in these culturally sensitive times are documentaries and dramas that tackle ethnic issues for a wider audience. Channel 4 was set up in 1982 with a mandate to produce minority broadcasting, and accordingly its recent documentaries include My New Home, about the children of new immigrants, and The Great British Black Invasion, which addressed African immigration to the UK, while recent dramas include The Bradford Riots and Michael Winterbottom's The Road To Guantánamo.

In its audience research, Channel 4 has established that, while ethnic viewers want television that is relevant to them, most don't necessarily want programming that addresses them exclusively.

"The thing that we predominantly found was that audiences from ethnic minorities no longer want this ghettoised programming which is aimed at a black audience or an Asian audience," says a representative for the channel. "But they do want to be represented on-screen in normal ways - to have a black newsreader or an ethnic character in a sitcom."

As Shabi point out, the ethnic population has changed enormously in the past 20 years or so. "The second and third generations of ethnic communities are the future of this country, and a lot of them have become anglicised. Or if that is too strong a word, they have become a part of wider British culture.

"These are people who are British and the only thing that separates them is their own unique heritage and culture, and the fact that they have a different tone of skin. A lot of them are watching EastEnders and Coronation Street and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and although you could argue these programmes aren't really tailored to ethnic communities, they are still entertainment and they are being watched."

Where drama and comedy are concerned, no one could possibly dispute that seamless diversity is the right way to go, but even with the best intentions, the results can be less than entirely natural.

Anil Gupta, producer of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars At No 42, says attempts to integrate ethnic characters often fall short.

"So often, when you see an ethnic character in a soap, it will be tokenistic and all their storylines will be based around their race," he says. "And they just stick out like sore thumbs. Most ethnic minority people in this country don't wake up every morning thinking, 'my God, I'm Asian, how am I going to deal with it today?'"

Clearly, much of the problem lies with Greg Dyke's bugbear - the ethnic make-up of the media industry itself.

A little less than 10 years ago, at around the time Goodness Gracious Me made its debut, Gupta recalls being asked in an interview what needed to change before television could become more broadly representative of the population. "I said, 'more executives and commissioning editors from ethnic backgrounds', and 10 years later, how much has changed?"

Programmes such as The Kumars might be assumed to have signalled a sea change in attitudes towards ethnic material, but Gupta, whose production credits include The Office and French and Saunders, wrily notes that the industry hasn't been banging down his door for more of the same.

"If you have a production team who have created hit shows, it is not that difficult to get your next show away," he says. "But having shown that you can get an audience for these things, it seems that there is still a reluctance to put those faces on in the mainstream."

The reality is an uncomfortable one, and it reflects the fact that, while the largely white media industry is generally conscious of all the proper issues, it has little faith in ethnic content to deliver mainstream audiences.

"Subconsciously, there is a voice which says, 'obviously I'm not racist, and my sophisticated friends aren't, but maybe the great unwashed aren't ready to watch a show with brown people in it, in sufficient numbers'," says Gupta.

"You don't want to be running around saying everyone is racist, because a) it's not true, and b) it doesn't make you any friends," he adds. "Everybody makes the right noises. But the bottom line is, well, do something about it."